Victoria — As progress reports go, the one Ombudsperson Jay Chalke provided this week on the investigation into those botched firings in the health ministry left a lot to be desired.

Granted, Chalke didn’t want the assignment in the first place. But the best argument for preferring the Ombudsperson over a full-blown public inquiry was the prospect of getting answers before the next election.

Now that hope is somewhat in doubt.

Based on what Chalke told the legislature finance committee when he took on the assignment more than a year ago, he should have wrapped up the work and released his findings last month.

Instead, as he conceded in a disconcerting briefing to the same committee Tuesday, the investigation is months behind schedule with multiple obstacles still to be cleared.

The Ombudsperson says the main reason for the holdup was a 20-fold increase in the documentary record associated with the firings, four years ago, of eight health ministry employees and contractors, one of who subsequently killed himself.

Initially, the government advised Chalke to prepare for the handover of some 200,000 documents associated with the case and subsequent fallout.

Lately that trove has grown to four million documents — and this from a government that provided no documentation whatsoever to a previous examination of the firings by Victoria lawyer Marcia McNeil.

Still, Chalke assured the committee that “we have no reason to believe that the large volume of records provided to us reflects an intention to give us a huge haystack in order to make it harder to find the needles.”

Rather he insisted that the flood of material was mainly a function of the committee’s broad brush direction to “leave no stone unturned” coupled with “how records were collected and created over the years by the many government officials responsible for the matters that you have asked us to investigate.

“We have a lot of work yet to do,” he told the committee, citing documents still to be vetted, interviews yet to be conducted and conclusions to be drawn.

“Then after that, under the Ombudsperson Act, we are required to give notice to any individual if the report may adversely affect them. We will do so, and then complete the writing of the report and then the depositing of it.”

Chalke maintains the objective is to wrap up the budgeted-at-$2 million investigation by the March 31 end of the current fiscal year. But that’s less than six weeks before B.C.’s election day. It wouldn’t take much more cause for delay to miss the latest target as well.

Note, too, the possible holdups with key witnesses. Some of those who were fired have so far balked at co-operating, because they have been unable to obtain access to the full documentary record, because they preferred the more open process of a public inquiry, or both.

Nor are those understandable reservations about the process likely to be diminished by Chalke’s other disclosure this week.

During his initial briefing to the committee in the summer of 2015, he assured MLAs that his previous posting in the ministry of the Attorney-General presented no obstacles to him taking on the investigation.

“I was not involved in the health firings matter as my branch, the justice services branch, did not provide legal advice to line ministries on such matters,” the then-newly appointed Ombudsperson testified.

Alas, in the course of sorting through those four million documents, his staff turned up evidence that a few months after the firings, the matter had briefly crossed his desk while he was filling for the vacationing deputy-attorney general.

“I received an inquiry from a senior deputy minister about the matter,” explained Chalke. “I made a preliminary inquiry of one or two senior officials, and then left the question for the deputy attorney-general to address when he returned from holiday … I made no decisions. I set no direction in any way, shape or form.

“Given how limited this involvement was, I simply had no recollection of it, he continued. “In fact, I still do not recall it.”

Hence his insistence that “this does not in any way affect my ability to complete this investigation.” He further advised that former Ombudsperson Stephen Owen had reached a similar conclusion after reviewing the circumstances.

That left the concern, well framed by New Democratic Party MLA George Heyman, as to why Chalke relied on a faulty memory in the first place.

“Did you consider that it was an issue of due diligence to make a request (of your former ministry) to be able to assure us and everyone else that you had been completely free and clear of any contact with this issue? Or was that simply an oversight?”

“I wouldn’t describe it as an oversight,” replied Chalke. “I simply had no recollection and so thought I had no reason to carry out the kind of request that you’re suggesting. Obviously, from my perspective, it would have been better had I done so.”

Obviously — especially given the lack of trust associated with a case that was mishandled by the government every step of the way.

Still, the only practical option is to let the Ombudsperson and his team proceed with the investigation and hope for the best, because time is running out.

Those firings happened before the last election. Any further delay diminishes the chance that British Columbians will have a proper explanation before the next one.

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